Notes

¹ "Substitute care" is out-of-home placement under the supervision of a public child welfare agency. In this report, the term "foster care" is used as an umbrella term for out-of-home, government-run substitute care, including care in foster families (including kinship care foster families), group homes and other institutions. The term does not refer to children who are receiving family preservation services in their biological family home. The American Public Welfare Association reported that at the end of fiscal year 1990, 74 percent of children in substitute care were in foster homes, 3 percent were in non-finalized adoptive homes (that is, they were already with their adoptive families but the formal process was not yet complete), 16 percent were in group homes or emergency care, less than 1 percent were living independently, and 6 percent were in "other" living arrangements. Toshio Tatara, Characteristics of Children in Substitute and Adoptive Care (Washington, DC: American Public Welfare Association, 1993), pp. 95-96. This finding based on 28 states reporting, accounting for 276,355 children, about 68 percent of the total substitute care population at the end of fiscal year 1990.

² In-care-today figure from original research on all 50 states conducted by the Institute for Children, Cambridge, MA. All-or-part-of-this-year figure based on: (1) In 1994, 698,000 children spent at least part of the year in state-run substitute care. American Public Welfare Association, figures revised July 1996. Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives, 1996 Green Book (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1996), p. 743; and (2) In an APWA survey of 53 jurisdictions, 62.3 percent of respondents indicated that "substitute care population will increase." Toshio Tatara, "U.S. Child Substitute Care Flow Data for FY 92 and Current Trends in the State Child Substitute Care Populations," VCIS Research Notes No. 9, American Public Welfare Association, Washington, DC, August 1993, p. 10. Note on APWA figures: several states indicated that they included status offenders and juvenile delinquents in the substitute care data submitted to the APWA. Tatara, Characteristics of Children in Substitute and Adoptive Care, p. 17.

³ The American Almanac 1996-1997 Statistical (Austin, TX: Hoover's, 1996), p. 257; and "Average Baseball Ticket Up to $11.98," Associated Press dispatch, March 28, 1997.

⁴ 1996 Green Book, p. 695; Robyn Lipner and Belinda Goertz, "Child Welfare Priorities and Expenditures," W-Memo, vol. 2, no. 8, American Public Welfare Association, p. 3.

⁵ Children's Rights Project, "Children's Rights Fact Sheet," American Civil Liberties Union, January 1995, p. 1.

⁶ 1996 Green Book, p. 707.

⁷ U.S. General Accounting Office, Foster Care: Services to Prevent Out-of-Home Placements Are Limited by Funding Barriers, GAO/HRD-93-76, June 1993, p. 62.

⁸ Daryl Bell-Greenstreet, "Foster Care Review Board Fails in its Duty Toward Children," The Arizona Republic, May 2, 1995, p. B4.

⁹ Children's Rights Project, A Force for Change (New York: American Civil Liberties Union, 1993), p. 2.

¹⁰ Tatara, Characteristics of Children in Substitute and Adoptive Care, p. 106, with 15 states reporting and accounting for 208,125 children or about 51 percent of total substitute care population at the end of fiscal 1990.

¹¹ Federal Register (1987). Cited in "Effectiveness of Family Reunification Services: An Innovative Evaluative Model," Social Work, vol. 37, no. 4, July 1992.

¹² National figure based on (1) Tatara, Characteristics of Children in Substitute and Adoptive Care, pp. 71-72; this finding based on 24 states reporting, accounting for 106,713 children, about 53 percent of the total estimated number of children exiting substitute care during fiscal year 1990; and (2) Tatara, "U.S. Child Substitute Care Flow Data for FY 92 and Current Trends in the State Child Substitute Care Populations," p. 10 (APWA survey data of 53 jurisdictions, with 62.3 percent of respondents indicating that "substitute care population will increase"). New York figure based on interview with Pat O'Brien, You Gotta Believe! New York, February 12, 1996.

¹³ Deborah Daro and Ching-Tung Wang, "Current Trends in Child Abuse Reporting and Fatalities: NCPCA's 1996 Annual Fifty State Survey," National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse. Available on the Internet at http://www.childabuse.org/5096sum.html. Data based on information from 39 states.

¹⁴ Ibid. Data based on information from 37 states.

¹⁵ Ibid.; "Child Abuse Rates Remain High," National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse. Available on the Internet at http://www.child abuse.org/rsrchl.html; and David Wiese and Deborah Daro, "Current Trends in Child Abuse Reporting and Fatalities: The Results of the 1994 Annual Fifty State Survey," National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse, April 1995, p. 5.

¹⁶ "Consider Foster Parenting," Massachusetts Department of Social Services.

¹⁷ 1996 Green Book, p. 734. The period during which the reported increase took place was from 1986 to 1988.

¹⁸ Cohort Two: A Study of Families and Children Entering Foster Care 1991-93.

¹⁹ 1996 Green Book, p. 735.

Next Page...